


shout to the devil

by evewithanapple



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:53:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: “Do you mean to tell me,” Strand says, voice deceptively flat, “that we are investigating claims of a Satanic cult?”





	shout to the devil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aramley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/gifts).



Nic is the one who takes the call, at first. Then he tries to put it through to Alex, but she’s so absorbed in editing the latest Black Tapes episode – headphones clamped firmly to either side of her head – that she doesn’t hear the phone ring. The first inkling she gets that someone is trying to call her is when Nic’s name pops up in a Skype window on the bottom right corner of her monitor. ANSWER YOUR PHONE, ALEX.

She sighs. DO I HAVE TO?

YES. The answer comes almost immediately. IT’S IMPORTANT, ALEX. PICK UP.

Scowling, she minimizes the WavePad window and picks up her desktop phone. “Hi, this is Pacific Northwest Studios. Alex Reagan speaking. How can I help you?”

“Hello, Ms. Reagan.” The voice on the other end is female, crisp on the edge of being brusque. “My name is Raquel Fox. Are you familiar with my work at all?”

The name tickles something at the back of Alex’s brain, but the recognition isn’t strong enough for Alex to remember where she’s heard it before. “I’m afraid not, no.”

“I’m a defence attorney,” Raquel Fox says, “and I’m calling you on behalf of one of my clients, regarding your podcast. She’s a fan-” Alex can hear the undercurrent of distaste in her voice, “-and wants to know if you’d be willing to assist her.”

“Assist?” Alex frowns to herself as she switches the handset from one ear to the other. “Ms. Fox, I’m not sure how much your client has told you about what we do here-”

“She’s said enough.” The voice on the other end is now verging on icy. However reluctant Alex was to take this call, she’s getting the impression that Fox was even more reluctant to make it in the first place. “I understand that you investigate claims of a paranormal nature. My client-” There’s a long pause, like she’s struggling to put her client’s wishes into words. “My client believes that paranormal events are the cause of her current incarceration, and would like you and your associate, Dr. Strand, to investigate your claims.” She pauses. “She recognizes that doing so would be a significant demand on your time and resources, and while she is not entirely financially solvent, she has benefactors who would be willing to compensate you for your efforts-”

“Wait, wait,” Alex says. The more Fox talks, the more Alex gets the impression that she’s heard her voice before, but she still can’t quite place it. “Who is your client, exactly?”

There’s another, longer pause before Fox replies. “Tania Burke.”

Alex leans back in her chair, pressing her free hand against her forehead and barely suppressing a groan.  _That’s_  where she’s heard Raquel Fox’s voice before: on endless airport TVs, doing interviews with Fox, CNN, MSNBC – anyone who would listen, really. The news had seized onto the Tania Burke case with the glee of hyenas descending onto a fresh carcass, and you couldn’t turn the TV on anymore without being blasted with photos of her or her daughter. “Ms. Fox, I’m not sure our involvement would be of much assistance- “

“Neither am I,” Fox says grimly. “But Tania insisted that I at least attempt to contact you. Can I take it, based on your response, that your answer is no?”

It’s on the tip of Alex’s tongue to reply in the affirmative: she hosts a human-interest show, not a criminal investigation, and she’s firmly of the belief that the two streams should not be crossed. Especially in a case like this, where the media is already all over the participants. If any of the big networks caught wind of a ghost stories podcast getting involved with Tania Burke, she – and Strand – would never hear the end of it. And Raquel Fox clearly feels the same way. It would be better for everyone involved if she politely declined, hung up the phone, and never spoke of the call again.

And yet . . . Nic  _had_ put the call through to her. He clearly thought it was worth looking into. And given that she was skating on thin ice with him lately, it probably wasn’t the best idea to dismiss Burke’s request out of hand.

“Let me call you back,” she says finally. “Can I get your number?”

* * *

 

 Given the media oversaturation, Alex is already passingly familiar with Tania Burke, but she decides to do some Googling to refresh her memory before she calls Raquel Fox back. Nothing she finds makes her any more enthusiastic about taking the story on. The court of public opinion has already tried and convicted Tania, and anything she or Strand has to say about it – assuming they would even have something to say in Tania’s defence – would only turn them into the latest cable news chew toys. She’s not ashamed to admit that she wouldn’t mind publicity, but this is not the type she imagined.

The basic facts are these: twenty-two-year-old Tania Burke and her three-year-old daughter Adalynn shared a two-bedroom apartment with Tania’s father in Portland. A little over nine months ago, Tania had left for work, leaving Adalynn at home with her grandfather. When she returned, she claimed to have found her daughter missing, and her father – who was bedbound with advanced emphysema – claiming to have seen and heard nothing. The police and the public both quickly zeroed in on Tania, first accusing her of neglect for leaving Adalynn at home without a proper babysitter, then going further and claiming that she had killed her daughter and disposed of the body somewhere in the area surrounding their house. Subsequent searches had failed to turn up any sign of Adalynn, but that hadn’t done Tania any good: she was sitting in the Multnomah County Jail, waiting for an indictment to come down for murder. Meanwhile, every piece of information the press had dug up on her just made her look worse: Adalynn was the result of an affair Tania had had with a married co-worker. Social services had been called to the household at least five times in the past year, though they refused to specify what they had been called for or what they had found. Tania had a juvenile record for assault, having gotten into a fight with a high school classmate that lead to her dropping out of tenth grade. Tania also had several drug possession convictions on her record, both as a juvenile and as an adult. Tania’s own father had called her a bad mother, and tried to order her out of the house. The overall picture was of a woman living a dirty, desperate, marginal life – the words “white trash” hadn’t been used on any of the mainstream channels, but they had been widely implied – who wasn’t fit to be a mother, and who had disposed of her daughter to make her own life a little easier. It wasn’t an image that would wash away easily.

Alex sat back from the computer with a sigh, rubbing her eyes. Nothing she had read on the case indicated any sort of supernatural involvement; far from it. Everything about the case was mundanely, depressingly normal. On their phone call, Raquel Fox hadn’t clarified what sort of paranormal events Tania thought were responsible, and Alex was having a hard time thinking of what she could claim – did she think an interdimensional portal had swallowed her daughter whole? Was she going to argue that fairies had stolen her away? The whole thing seemed like far too big of a headache to get involved with, especially considering that she and Strand had plenty of black tapes to investigate that didn’t involve the current Public Enemy #1. All of her instincts told her to walk away.

On the other hand, there was Nic. He’d stopped by her office after she got off the phone with Raquel Fox and more or less instructed her to take the story on. It was publicity, he argued (Alex agreed, though she wasn’t at all sure that “all publicity is good publicity” was a phrase that applied to the situation) and also, they could conceivably get paid for it – Raquel Fox had promised that unnamed “benefactors” would support the investigation, after all. And even if they didn’t find anything, wouldn’t it at least be worth it to try?

“Easy for you to say,” Alex had retorted. “ _You’re_  not the one flying to Portland.”

In hindsight, that may have been an implicit agreement.

She should really start choosing her words more carefully. 

* * *

 

“You realize, of course,” Strand says, “that this is an utter waste of time.”

Alex buries herself further in her Kindle and tries to ignore him. When she’d first told Strand about their latest case, he’d flat-out refused to participate. It had taken several pleading phone calls, promises to not emphasize his involvement, and an offer to do an episode focused on debunking famous fake psychics to get him to agree. Still, he wasn’t happy about it. And now, as they were trapped next to each other in cramped airplane seats (apparently Raquel Fox’s mysterious benefactors weren’t _that_  wealthy) he had evidently decided to unleash all of his irritation on a captive audience.

“Even if we were to uncover some evidence of the supernatural – which is  _highly_  unlikely, not to say impossible – no court in the United States would accept our testimony in a criminal trial. Spectral evidence was banned from the judicial system after the Salem witch trials, and for good reason.”

“The Greenbrier ghost,” Alex says, not looking up from the Kindle.

There’s a pause. Alex isn’t sure if she’s shocked Strand, or simply infuriated him further. Maybe both. “I beg your pardon?”

“The Greenbrier ghost.” Alex looks up, waving her Kindle at him. “1897. A woman named Mary Jane Heaster testified at her son-in-law’s trial for the murder of her daughter that said daughter’s spirit had appeared to her in a dream to accuse her husband of murder. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. I’ve got a book about it right here.”

Strand lets out a slow, measured sigh. Alex is pretty sure he’s just infuriated now. “Edward Shue’s conviction was based on physical evidence, not his mother-in-law’s dreams. And besides, that case is over a hundred years old. The social and cultural climate has to be taken into account, especially the rise of Spiritualism and the reputation Shue had in Greenbrier-“

“There’s another one,” Alex says. “The Red Barn Murder-”

“That was in 1827. In England.”

“-not to mention, if we’re talking about the social and cultural climate, you can’t discount the current popularity of mediums and psychics. Or, for that matter, our show.” She sets the Kindle down on her arm rest. “The court doesn’t have to listen to our evidence. We don’t need to be sworn in as witnesses. All Raquel wants is for us to investigate, and potentially uncover something that casts Tania’s case in a different light. If we can sway public opinion, we’ve done our job without ever setting foot in a courtroom.”

Strand fixes her with a glare. “Some might call that jury tampering.”

Alex resists the urge to scoff. “That only applies if we approach any of the jury members directly. I have done my research, you know.” She picks the Kindle back up. “Besides, I haven’t made any promises that we’ll actually find anything. Just that we’ll look.”

Strand is quiet for a moment, as Alex skims across the page where she left off. Then he says, quietly, “Have you researched the statistics on missing children? The vast majority meet with foul play at the hands of close family members.”

Alex sighs. She  _has_  done that research. And given Tania’s documented history of substance abuse and poor impulse control, it’s the most obvious solution: she flew into a rage, drug-induced or otherwise, and killed Adalynn. There was, after all, a  _reason_ police had arrested her in the first place. Every time she starts down this particular train of thought, she finds herself tempted anew by the thought of grabbing her luggage, jumping off the plane, and driving back to her apartment. Why is she even here?

Well. Because of Nic. And because . . .

“This is the e-mail Raquel sent me,” Alex says, handing her phone over to Strand. Part of her had hoped to put this particular revelation off until after they’d landed in Portland, but there wasn’t much of a point to that: he was going to find out sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. Fantasies aside, it wouldn’t actually be permissible for either of them to jump off the plane at this point.

He takes the phone from her, scanning the text of the e-mail. His eyes narrow as he does it, a vein twitching slowly in his cheek. Alex winces, bracing herself for the upcoming explosion.

When he’s done reading, he sets the phone down carefully on the armrest. Alex grabs it and stuffs it in her pocket, in case he gestures and knocks it to the floor. “Do you mean to tell me,” Strand says, voice deceptively flat, “that we are investigating claims of a Satanic cult?”

“Well,” Alex says. “Yes. Or – a group calling itself Satanic anyway.”

“They’re not  _calling_ themselves anything!” Strand hisses. “There’s no evidence, besides this woman’s word, that these people even  _exist_!”

“Well,” Alex says again, in what she hopes is a pacifying tone, “that’s what we’re going to try and find out.”

If Strand has an answer to that, he doesn’t get to offer it: just then, the pilot’s voice comes on over the loudspeaker, reminding them to turn off all electronic devices and buckle their seatbelts. Alex does so, fervently hoping that Strand will have settled into a more agreeable mood by the time they land in Portland. 

* * *

 

After Alex accepted Raquel Fox’s offer, the lawyer had e-mailed her a lengthy document explaining Tania’s claims. She’d also included something that was, to Alex, far more valuable – a tape recording of a conversation she’d had with Tania in jail. The Portland cops, presumably sick of the publicity, had decreed that Tania was to receive no visitors other than her lawyer and her immediate family, which meant that Raquel was the only person to ever really see her. So, in lieu of having Alex come and talk to her, Raquel had simply cut out the middleman and interviewed Tania herself. Alex has to admire her initiative.

Listening to it, Alex also has to admire Raquel’s ear for journalism. It’s not the interview she would have conducted herself – there are several places where she would have gently steered Tania in a different direction, trying to get the most out of her without asking overtly probing questions – but Raquel had still managed to gather an impressive amount of information in a little under an hour’s worth of conversation. Part of it was skill. Another part was Tania. She  _loved_  to talk.

“So this guy, the guy I was screwing before, Adalynn’s dad-” There’s a pause as Tania coughs. “He was into some weird shit, you know? Not the regular kind of weird shit, like, with handcuffs. I’m good with all that. But we were screwing this one time, and he pulled a knife out, and I was like, what the fuck? No way. He wanted to carve patterns on me, like – you know that star thing? The one in the circle? It’s some Satanic shit.”

“A pentagram?” Raquel’s voice, cool and soft (she sounds much less businesslike here, almost verging on motherly) is a striking contrast to Tania, who has a prominent lisp.

“Yeah, I guess,” Tania says. “He wanted to carve one of those on me, and I was like fuck no, but I got it as a tattoo. I’m fine with tattoos. His one friend did it, the guy with the motorbike. He always kind of gave me the creeps. Like, he was really grody, you know? And I think some of his biker buddies might have been skinheads.”

“Tania,” Raquel’s tone is gentle, betraying no hint of impatience. “What about Adalynn?”

“Right, right.” There’s a long hiss of air as Tania sighs. “So when she was born, he didn’t want to be around, right? He didn’t want to pay child support or anything. But sometimes he’d come around, and it was  _always_  with his biker buddy. Shit, he spent more time around Adalynn than her own dad. And he was always bringing stuff around too, like stuffed toys or mobiles. One time, I was washing one of the toys and it split open, and there was all this shit inside – I thought maybe it was just weed, but it smelled real weird. I walked into Adalynn’s room one time, and he was standing over her crib waving something around. I kicked him out after that.” There’s a pause, and another long hiss of air. Alex thinks she might be smoking.

“And the day Adalynn went missing?” That was Raquel.

“It was the whole week,” Tania says. “All that week, I could hear his motorcycle outside. And more weird shit was happening around the house. Birds were flying into the windows. I found a dead rat under the couch, and our shithead landlord said it was because we had an infestation, but I  _know_  there weren’t any fuckin’ rats in that house. There was blood on the walls, like that movie – you know, the movie? With the flies?”

“The Amityville Horror?”

“Yeah, that. Pops said he didn’t see it, but he’s in bed all day, he doesn’t see anything. So that day-“ There’s a catch in her voice. “-that day, when I got home and Adalynn wasn’t there, the blood was gone. Like it was never there in the first place. I thought for sure it would be evidence, you know, like when the cops got there? But it was  _gone_ , and they wouldn’t even believe me when I told them it had been there. They said if there was any blood on the walls, it was because I hit Adalynn, but I didn’t hit her. I didn’t!”

There’s a pause, punctuated by snuffling noises that Alex assumes is Tania crying, then the sound of her blowing her nose. “He took her,” she says, voice thick. “he took her for sure. Sick fuck. I don’t know what it was for, but I know for sure it was something fucked-up. And nobody will  _listen_  to me.”

The tape ends not long after that. Alex taps on the “stop” button, and sits back, looking at Strand. “Well?”

Strand has both arms crossed across his chest, brow furrowed into a scowl. “She could at least attempt to remember the names of the films she’s plagiarizing.”

“Oh, come on,” Alex says. “It’s not that far-fetched, is it? Even if this biker guy isn’t a literal Satanist, it’s completely possible that he or Adalynn’s father were somehow involved in her disappearance.”

“Are there any witnesses putting him at the scene?”

“There aren’t any witnesses, period.” Alex picks up her phone and flips over to one of the articles she’s been reading about the case. “Between the time Tania left for work at nine and when she got home at seven, there are ten hours unaccounted for. Tania’s father can’t, or won’t say anything about what happened that day, so we effectively have no witnesses. Anything could have happened.”

“Or,” Strand says, “this woman could be lying through her teeth about the sequence of events in order to cover up for her own guilt. Is there _any_ independent proof that the child was alive and well that morning?”

Alex sets her mouth in a hard line. “There’s no proof that she wasn’t.”

“You cannot argue the absence of proof as proof itself,” Strand says flatly. “The bottom line is, lacking any concrete evidence pointing towards this woman’s innocence, her guilt will be assumed. Already _is_ being assumed. And the standards any contradicting argument will be held to are far higher than the argument confirming peoples’ existing biases.”

“That’s not fair.” It sounds childish, even to Alex’s own ears, but it’s also true. It’s _not_ fair. She can feel pricklings of guilt under her own indignation – hadn’t she assumed along with everyone else that Tania must be guilty? But at least she was trying to do something about it now. “You believe in the scientific method. Aren’t you opposed to arguments based on biases?”

Strand makes no answer to that – whether because he has none or simply because he’s tired of the argument, Alex doesn’t know. She doesn’t really care, either. As long as he’s not actively trying to jump ship, they’re good.

 

* * *

 

With no access to Tania in jail, or to the local police (Alex tried; they have no interest in speaking to her) their next best bet is examining the scene of the crime. The prosecution’s case rests on the idea that Adalynn was killed at home, but Tania’s apartment hasn’t been sealed off with caution tape. It had been searched, sure – several times, in fact. But with no evidence on the scene, the police didn’t have much reason to seal the place off. Small mercies, Alex thinks.

The apartment stands empty now – of the three occupants, one is missing and the other’s in jail. The third occupant, Tania’s father, has moved away, though no one’s really followed up on where he moved to or who’s caring for him now. Alex had asked Raquel if she had his contact information, and Raquel’s response had been brief and bleak: he’d refused all contact with his daughter or her lawyer, and further attempts at reaching him had been met with a wall of silence. The only thing they know for sure is, he’s not in the apartment anymore.

When they open the (unlocked) door, they’re met with a smell of tobacco smoke so strong, it makes Alex’s eyes water. No wonder Tania’s father had emphysema: the place reeked of nicotine. She pulled her turtleneck up over her mouth as she moved past the door. A quick glance behind her confirmed that Strand was also covering his grimace with one hand. The walls around them were yellowed, though whether the colour came from paint or simply wear and tear, Alex couldn’t say. The ceilings overhead is spackled with popcorn treatment, and white flakes drift down onto their heads as they walk. Alex wonders if they’re going to get asbestos poisoning from this.

“I’ll check the bedrooms,” she says, “if you want to look in the bathroom and the kitchen.” Strand jerks his head in a nod, and they split up.

The first bedroom she looks in has to have been Tania and Adalynn’s – there are peeling Winnie-the-Pooh decals stuck to the walls and several abandoned stuffed toys tossed aside into a corner. The covers on the double bed are tossed back, as though they’ve been left in the same position they were in when Tania first searched the apartment for her missing daughter. Alex gathers the blankets up in her hands and shakes them out, wondering just what it is she’s expecting to find. Is Adalynn going to come tumbling out of the blankets? Is her body? Is a Satanic Bible?

Her search of the bed – which also includes yanking the fitted sheet back and examining the mattress – yields nothing but a few old stains that look nothing like blood. If they were blood, Alex thinks, the police would have taken notice, wouldn’t they? They were looking for evidence of foul play, after all. The bed having defeated her, she moves on to examine the drawers of the bedside table (crammed with pens, rolling papers, packs of cigarettes, and loose pennies) and under the bed (nothing but dust bunnies.) Then she bends down to pick up one of the stuffed animals, and is startled to see a dull gleam around the teddy bear’s neck.

“Hey, Strand?” she calls. “Come look at this.”

As Strand makes his way into the bedroom, Alex unwinds the chain – it is a chain, some kind of necklace – from around the bear’s neck. It’s a long bronze chain with a circular amulet dangling from the end. She holds the amulet up to the light from the window, squinting. “Can you see what’s on it?”

Strand takes the amulet from her, inspecting it. “Some form of writing,” he says. “I could be wrong, but I believe it’s Aramaic. And a sigil – ah.”

“Ah?” Alex repeats.

Strand passes the amulet to her. “It’s the sigil of Baphomet,” he explains. “Popular with occultists and black metal fans. I suspect you could buy a necklace like this at any number of music venues or head shops.”

Alex raises her eyebrows at him. “The sigil of _Baphomet_?” she repeats. “Popular with occultists? Don’t you think that lends a bit of credence to Tania’s claims?”

“Perhaps.” He shrugs. “Or perhaps Ms. Burke simply has very poor taste in music and jewellery.”

Alex rolls her eyes, and kneels down to inspect the floor. There’s a shabby rug – more of a mat, really – next to the bed, but when she lifts it, she finds nothing underneath but a ripped-up envelope. When she tried to assemble the pieces, she makes out the words INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICES, gives up, and moves on to the next room. 

Wherever Tania’s father went, he clearly took all his medical equipment with him: this room is almost completely bare, save for a cot, a rug, and a lamp. The shade on the lamp has been removed, and when Alex tried to flick the “on” switch, she gets nothing for her troubles. All right, then. She kneels down and peels the rug backwards, pausing when the floor underneath yields some sort of sloppy carving on the hardwood. She traces the grooves with her fingers: once again, it looks like some kind of writing, but it’s indecipherable. Aramaic again? Or something else?

“Strand?” she calls, but she gets no answer. She twists around, starting to get up from her hands and knees. “Hey, Dr. Strand? Can you-“

She’s utterly unprepared for the crack that comes against the back of her head. There’s no opportunity to resist: one hard blow, and the world blinks out of existence.

* * *

 

“Ughhhh,” Alex says.

Her head hurts. Her back hurts. Her wrists hurt – are they tied together? They’re chafing. Her legs hurt. Her mouth tastes like stale beer and cough syrup. What the hell is going on?

She tries, slowly, to pry one eye open. It’s a lot more effort than it should be, and the light in the room hurts her head even more. She closes her eye again. Too much effort, she decides. She’ll open her eyes later. Now, she wants to rest.

“Up,” a voice says next to her ear.

Alex blinks. She immediately regrets it. She blinks again anyway. Two tiny, moist hands are exploring her face, poking at her nose and mouth. She forces her eyes open, and keeps them open this time. Another face is looming directly in front of her, so close that she can only make out a set of blurry features – two blue eyes, a nose, a cloud of hair. Hands next to her eyes, tugging at her hair.

“Who-“ She coughs, clears her throat. “Who are you?”

The person inspecting her takes a step back, and Alex’s breath gets stuck halfway to her lungs. She knows this face. It’s the one fact that’s been featured on the news more than Tania and Raquel combined, splashed across every supermarket tabloid cover, pasted to homemade signs carried at vigils. Big blue eyes. Dirty blonde hair. A little button nose. And- and-

“Adalynn?”

Adalynn Burke peers at Alex for another moment and then, apparently bored, wanders away. Alex twists her head to watch her go, ignoring the way her neck protests. Next to her, Strand is tied to a chair, chin resting against his chest, eyes closed. Adalynn clambers up onto his knees, poking experimentally at his nose and mouth. “Up?” she says. Strand only groans in reply.

“Adalynn,” a voice says from outside Alex’s field of vision. “Adalynn, come here.”

Adalynn abandons Strand and toddles away in the direction of the voice. Alex strains to watch her go. There’s a soft _whoosh_ ing sound from the corner, the squeak of wheels, and the owner of the voice slowly comes into view. Both his arms rest on the sides of his wheelchair, and behind him, he tows an IV and an oxygen tank. His eyes are sunk deep in his face, but they’re still instantly recognizable. Tania’s eyes. Adalynn’s eyes.

“Grampa,” Adalynn says, grabbing at her grandfather’s knees. He pushes her away impatiently with one hand, eyes on Alex. “Ms. Reagan,” he says. “You’re awake. I assume your partner will follow shortly.”

Next to her, Strand groans again. Alex tried to push her swollen tongue to speak. “You – she – “

“Do you know how many people have been to that apartment in the last nine months?” He pushes his chair a little bit closer. “Police, private investigators, souvenir seekers. And yes, journalists too. But most don’t think to _open the door_.” He laughs, a raspy noise that sounds more painful than everything. “Who would have thought it? No lock, no key, but basic respect for the law was enough to keep the sight seekers out.” He puts his oxygen mask up to his face and takes a deep breath. Alex sits in silence, listening to his lungs rattle. He puts the mask down. “Except for _you_.”

“Respect for the law?” Alex repeats. “You kidnapped your granddaughter and framed your daughter for murder.”

He laughs that horrible, wheezing laugh again. “Framed? I don’t think so. What did I do to frame her, besides tell the truth?” He fixes Alex with a watery eye. “You must have done some background reading on my daughter. Do _you_ think she’s fit to be a parent?”

Alex glances sideways at Strand again. His eyes are open now, but she can’t tell if he’s taking in any of his surroundings. “And you are?” she says. “You’re the one who raised her in the first place. What makes you a better parent than her?” She thinks about the amulet in Tania’s bedroom, the carvings on the floor. What kind of _Michelle Remembers_ nightmare have they stumbled into? And how are they going to get out of it?

There are footsteps in the distance, and for the first time, Alex notes the hallway leading into the room. She thinks it’s a basement, but it’s hard to tell – the walls and floor are cement, and she can see bare pipes up by the ceiling. There are no windows, and cold seems to seep from the walls. She shifts in her chair, trying to reach her back pocket. Did they think to take her cell phone? She can feel a blocky outline against the denim, but it’s just out of her reach. If she can pull it out and somehow dial for help behind her back . . .

The footsteps get louder, and another man steps into the room. This one is tall, with leather boots climbing to mid-calf, and a sweat-stained bandanna wrapped around his head. Alex has never seen him before in her life, but it doesn’t take a genius to pin him as Adalynn’s father’s sinister “biker buddy.” Tattoos twine their way around his forearms – a skull with a burning tongue, several roses, a pentagram – and he wears a battered leather vest that matches his boots. He grunts in her direction, but he’s addressing himself to Tania’s father. “She awake?”

“Does she look awake?” Tania’s father says, not bothering to disguise his impatience. “Him, I’m not sure about. Check on him.”

The biker stomps over to where Strand is sitting and grabs a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back. Strand makes a pained noise somewhere in the back of his throat; from where she’s sitting, Alex can see the whites of his eyes. “Yep.”

She feels a touch on her hip, and looks down; Adalynn has scurried back across the floor and is crouching behind Alex’s chair, watching the biker with wide eyes. Alex can’t reach down to touch her, but she offers what she hopes is a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, honey,” she whispers.

“Bad,” Adalynn whispers back. She’s got her fingers hooked in Alex’s belt loops, which gives Alex an idea. Tania’s father is arguing with the biker, which means that neither of them are paying any attention to her. She bends her head towards Adalynn. “Sweetie, can you see a phone in my pocket? Can you grab it?”

Adalynn sucks on the fingers of one hand, while pawing at Alex’s pockets with the other. Alex leans forward to give her space to pull the phone out, which she does; it clatters to the floor. Tania’s father whips his head around, glaring at Alex and Strand. “What was that?”

With her left foot, Alex kicks the phone behind the chair. “I don’t know,” she says smoothly. “The pipes?”

Tania’s father grunts. “Adalynn, come here.”

Adalynn gives Alex a wide-eyed look, but she goes. When she reaches her grandfather, he puts his hand on the top of her head in a way that makes Alex shudder. It’s not a loving gesture – it’s a proprietary one. “So what’s the plan here?” she asks. “You get Tania thrown in jail, then grab Adalynn and leave the state?”

Tania’s father makes a harrumphing noise in the back of his throat. He bends towards Adalynn, pushing on her head so that she’s looking up at him. “Show her your pictures,” he says to her. She looks doubtful – no, scared. “Go on.”

Adalynn turns back towards Alex as her grandfather releases his grip on her head. She grabs the hem of her shirt with both hands, and lifts, pulling it up to her chin.

Alex chokes on a scream. The little girl’s torso is covered with angry red carvings – more pentagrams, more Aramaic writing, more sigils. None are bleeding, but they all look fresh. Adalynn watches her from over the hem of her shirt, eyes wide and liquid. “You asshole,” Alex says. “You fucking _asshole_.”

Tania’s father lets out another humourless chuckle. “Language.”

“So what does that mean, then?” With her foot, she tries to scoot the phone closer to her hands. It’s no good; even if she got it in place, she wouldn’t be able to reach. Instead, she taps the power button with the side of her heel, and starts to squirm her foot free of her sneaker. She’s heard of butt-dialing, but never toe-dialing; hopefully it’ll still work. “What’s she? A sacrifice?”

“Close enough,” Tania’s father concedes. “A vessel. A receptacle. Not that it matters, really, to you.” He wheels his chair forward. “I’m not going to kill you, if that’s on your mind. You and your friend will be left here to be discovered by the authorities after my friend and I have left. By that point, not only will I be operating under a different name, I will be entirely unrecognizable as my former self.” He looks down at Adalynn. “Interesting, isn’t it? The obvious solution to the problem of aging: siphon the necessary vitality from someone younger. But so few people have actually _done_ it.”

“Eli-“ Alex whips her head around to look at Strand. His head is still dangling, but he’s at least awake and alert enough to follow the conversation, after a fashion. “Elizab- Erzsébet – Bathory.”

“Well of course, Professor.” Tania’s father is looking at Strand now. Alex takes the opportunity to jab at her phone’s touchscreen with her toes. The number nine is at the bottom right hand of the screen – then the one at the top left – then the one again –

She hears a faint beep, then an even fainter ringing noise. She lets out a long, quiet exhale of relief: the 911 operators can track where the call was made from. Still they might not realize it’s anything but a prank, and it’s not like she can talk directly to the person who picks up. Unless-

“Help!” she screams suddenly. The three men in the room all jump. “Help us! Help us, we’ve been kidnapped!” She throws her head up towards the ceiling, as though she’s trying to be heard through the walls. “Help, we’re down here! Help, help, please-“

The biker strides across the room and slams a closed fist across Alex’s head. Her neck snaps to the side, and she can feel blood trickling from her ear. “Shut up!” he snaps. Alex tries to hold her head up, only to find that the muscles in her neck refuse to obey her. That’s something to worry about. Later. Once they get out of this.

Adalynn whimpers, and creeps across the floor to where Alex is sitting. She puts her hands on Alex’s knees, looking up at her anxiously. Alex tries to smile. “It’s okay,” she says again, in a low whisper. “Everything’s gonna be okay.” The phone is no longer making noise; whoever’s on the other end (please, _please_ let it be the police) has either hung up, or just isn’t talking. Whatever the reason, Alex prays they’re sending the cavalry.

The biker pulls the bandanna off his head and jams it unceremoniously into Alex’s mouth. She tries not to gag; it smells as bad as it looks, and adds to the already foul taste on her tongue. Did their captors drug them? It would explain why Strand still seems so out of it. She’d prefer that explanation to severe head trauma.

Tania’s father whips his head around, eyes narrowing. It takes Alex a second to hear what he hears: the distant whine of sirens, growing rapidly louder with each passing second. He looks at the biker. “You said the building was empty. That the _neighbourhood_ was empty.”

“It is,” the biker says, but he doesn’t sound convinced. The sirens are growing louder. Alex sighs with relief, letting her chin sink against her chest. Adalynn’s tiny, warm hands are still pressed against her knees. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Strand slowly blinking. They’re okay. They’re gonna be okay.

There’s the sound of a door being kicked in above their heads, followed by thundering footsteps. Tania’s father struggles to get up from his chair, but falters halfway, wheezing and clutching at his IV pole. The biker lunges towards the hallway, but before he can run for it, he’s shoved backwards by the figures in black pouring through the doorway. Adalynn’s hands tighten on her knees, and Alex smiles at her. “It’s okay,” she says, for a third time. “We’re okay now.”

 

* * *

 

“For the record,” Strand says, “the fact that Carl Burke believed he was enacting a Satanic ritual to prolong his lifespan does not mean that the ritual would actually have provided any results.”

Alex gives him a tired smile “I can live with that.”

They’re back in Seattle. After the SWAT team pulled them out of the basement – which, as it turned out, was in a condemned apartment building a few blocks away from the local police station – they’d spent a week in the Providence Portland Medical Centre (Raquel had footed the bill) where doctors had confirmed that neither of them would suffer lasting brain damage, and that Strand’s confusion had been side-effects of chloroform rather than a blow to the head. They had been released from the hospital around the same time that Tania was released from jail and reunited with Adalynn; their tearful reunion had been all over the TVs in the waiting room as Alex and Strand waited to be checked out. Alex has several unheard messages on her answering machine, all from either Raquel or Tania; she’s waiting for her head to clear a bit more before she listens and responds to them.

“I should think you can do more than live with it,” Strand says quietly. “You saved that child’s life.”

“Mmm.” There’s a TV on in the PNWS studios as well, though it’s on mute; of course, all the news channels are still running nonstop slideshows of Tania getting out of jail, Tania’s father being taken into jail, Tania sweeping Adalynn up into her arms, the biker (whose name, it turns out, is Tanner Newman; he has connections to organized crime, as does Adalynn’s father. The father hasn’t been arrested yet; apparently “investigations are ongoing.”) swearing at his prison guards “I’d feel better if I could also pay for all the therapy she’s going to need.”

She hadn’t asked if doctors could remove the carvings Adalynn’s grandfather inflicted on her; she suspects the answer is “no.” One way or another, Adalynn and Tania are going to carry this with them for the rest of their lives. It’s hard to feel entirely triumphant, knowing that.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Strand says. “Given the general litigious nature of American society, and the fact that Tania Burke almost certainly has grounds for a lawsuit against the Portland police, I imagine she and her daughter will be set for life.” His tone is ironic, but his face is soft; in his own way, Alex knows, he’s trying to make her feel better.

“Thanks,” she says.

Her phone buzzes, and she glances down. It’s Nic again. DO YOU AGREE THAT YOU’VE MET YOUR PUBLICITY QUOTIENT FOR THE MONTH?

Alex snorts, and replies. FOR THE YEAR, I THINK.

FAIR ENOUGH, Nic texts back. WANT TO GO ON EDITING DUTY INSTEAD? NO INTERVIEWS OR INVESTIGATIONS INVOLVED, I PROMISE.

Alex smiles. SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN.

She pockets her phone, and stands up. “Back to work,” she says. She looks at Strand. “You coming?”

Strand pulls himself up off the couch, wincing slightly. Alex extends a hand to pull him the rest of the way up, and he offers a slight smile in response, thought his voice remains dry as ever. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”


End file.
